IOGEAR's Mobile Digital Scribe lets you ignore digital pens on the go

We're not sure how many of you were so hopelessly addicted to the IOGEAR Digital Scribe that you clamored for a mobile version, but the company has somehow heard your cries and duly provided. Just like big brother, the Mobile Digital Scribe comes in two parts: the pen itself, which uses ordinary ink in addition to transmitting your doodled masterworks, and the USB receiver, which has been shrunken in size and given a detachable mini-USB cord. The receiver also now has enough memory to hold up to 50 pages of scribblings, which you can download back to your PC for OCR later. Interestingly, you'll pay a $30 premium over the original Digital Scribe for all these hot new features -- we suppose no one at IOGEAR has used one of these to sketch out a demand curve, eh?

[Marc @ Mar 4th 2008 5:00AM]

they probably tried to sketch it out but the reciever picked up a supply curve

[Juaquin @ Mar 4th 2008 6:03AM]

I use the regular one for taking notes - a keyboard is great for history and humanities classes, but doesn't work to well for diagrams and equations in math/science. The software is annoying since you can't write/draw directly into Word - you can only save it as their file and then convert to a Word document (and you have to pay if you want the software version that will also convert the images).

[crapface @ Mar 4th 2008 7:46AM]

I used Microsoft's OneNote in graduate school to write notes using a digitizer/touchscreen and it worked great. The only downside is getting stuff out of their file format. I'm sure I have hundreds of pages of notes in a format that is barely accessible now. It's too bad the software for this has a similar problem.

[Balance_In_Life @ Mar 4th 2008 6:08AM]

You know, I actually could have used this in college. I remember at the start of each semester I would use brand new notebooks for all my notes. By the end of the semester I would always be missing a few pages due to a few months of use. This a back up to my notes would have been great.

[jim @ Mar 4th 2008 9:42AM]

[SARCASM]

Wow!

My Seiko inklink from 5 years ago lives again! What an astounding new product.

Oh wait - this doesn't come with the IR interface to connect to Pocket PCs and Palm devices AND it cost $30 more than the discontinued inklink.

Wowee!!!

[/SARCASM]

[Tom Gabriele @ Mar 4th 2008 11:14AM]

question:

could i write a whole page of notes with this, then go back up to the top of the page and change something? would it pick up the change? how does it know its on a new page?

[Michael @ Mar 4th 2008 12:38PM]

Yes, you can move around the page while writing. You have to use special paper for the pen to work correctly. There is a built-in scanner in the tip of the pen that reads the dot pattern to determine the position on the paper.

[Joseph @ Mar 4th 2008 1:16PM]

Michael is incorrect about this pen requiring special paper. Other devices like this do, but not this one.

[Juaquin @ Mar 4th 2008 6:34PM]

Michael is incorrect - the pen sends out a signal that the main unit picks up and uses triangulation to figure out the pen's position. Any paper works. You can't really "make changes" - there's no erasing it once it's in. But you could cross something out and write something next to it. So, really, the end effect is the same as if you had taken notes on regular paper and then later scanned them with a scanner. This just does it at the same time.

[beans @ Mar 4th 2008 8:38PM]

I actually like this. I never bought things like this before due to the need for special paper. But if that is no longer a necessity, I may get this. I need to see how good the capture resolution is.

[Argon @ Mar 4th 2008 10:33PM]

Could I write in cursive and still have it recognized? or print only?

[Kspraydad @ Mar 6th 2008 7:15AM]

You are capturing a jpg so it is up to the quality of your (their) OCR software...